


Peep Toe Stilettos

by tinknevertalks



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag - The Five, F/M, Kinda pre-ship but also post-ship, Time loops are difficult but fun, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 15:00:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14381109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinknevertalks/pseuds/tinknevertalks
Summary: Nikola sees Helen creeping from a hotel room before her lecture in Rome.





	Peep Toe Stilettos

**Author's Note:**

> I love time loops. I love the opportunities that are presented to us with a time loop. Hopefully you'll enjoy it too.
> 
> The other thing I love? Obliquely referencing other fics. Just, fyi. 
> 
> My deepest thanks to Rinari7, who is just as much a fan of timey-wimey as me, but much better at grammar and stuff.

Nikola loved Rome. The history, the culture, the wine. No-one batted an eye when he walked around the Palazzo Altemps like he owned it.

He knew she’d be here, what with the meetings and lectures running all week, and the information he procured from good old Johnny. Maybe he’d visit her; it had been too long since their last meeting, and their goodbye had been too brief.

Satisfying, but brief.

Turning the corner of the elegant hotel, who did he spy but his target ( _prey_ ), sneaking out of a hotel room, sky high strappy stilettos in hand. Smirking, he started walking toward her but she was already moving away from him. At the next corner, she turned.

Her eyebrows arched as she met his gaze - surprised he was there or that he’d seen her? - but in a breath her expression changed to one much more welcoming. Her hooded eyes trailed down his body, knowing and hungry, as she bit her lip. Nikola’s heart skipped a beat ( _like Switzerland, watching her walk away_ ). With a wink she turned the corner. Aware of eyes unseen (any one of them an informant to the Cabal), he walked, like an ordinary, mortal human, down the hall, purpose driving every step. He knew before he turned the same corner she’d be gone.

He was right.

Smirking, rubbing the tips of his incisors with his tongue (not with the need to feed but a definite hunger only Helen could encourage in him), he spun on his heel and walked the way he came, plan fully formed in his mind. He even knew what he was going to write in his note.

\--

Helen clutched the heels of the shoes harder in her hand, the plastic digging into her palm. Stealing shoes from her counterpart probably wasn’t her best idea, but an excuse to walk in Rome, to use her real name again? 

_I should’ve stayed in Australia._

They weren’t the reasons she came though. It was silly, melodramatic in the extreme ( _he would be proud_ ), and she’d never admit it to anyone, but she needed to see him. She needed the reminder of what sixty years in exile had done to him, of the arrogant, conniving, self-assured bastard time had distilled in her ( _lover_ ) friend ( _supporter_ ). As strong as she had been this past century and a bit, she couldn’t trust herself to not react in the future to his self-serving ways without this flash of remembrance.

Actually seeing him hadn’t been part of the plan. Hiding in plain sight for so many years had been her way of life (so well hidden, in fact, she had checked for her reflection more than once in her second turn at the twentieth century) that for him to stop, drink her in? She’d been so busy looking at him (remembering their delicious, shared, springtime months) she missed the moment his expression changed from deer in the headlights to panther on the prowl. With a wink, she turned the corner and ducked into the open stairwell.

Heart hammering in her chest, she smiled as she walked, barefoot and silent, down the stairs. Her younger self had been an idiot - allowing herself only one night after years of curiosity ( _blatant flirtation_ ) before casting him out - but now she was older, and she wouldn’t make the same mistake of sending him away.

She’d just have to make sure he’d survive until she could persuade him to stay.

**Author's Note:**

> Did you catch the reference? :)


End file.
